Postal and parcel operators in various European countries have reported new records for delivery volumes generated by the recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday online shopping promotions as well as traditional seasonal celebrations.
In the Netherlands, PostNL, as expected, saw record numbers of parcels from the online shopping weekend right through to last week due to the Sinterklaas (‘St Nicholas’) celebration on December 5, when Dutch people traditionally give each other presents.
The postal operator said its drivers, sorting staff and parcel delivery staff “delivered a top performance” by processing and delivering much higher volumes than usual each day. In total, PostNL distribution centres received roughly 12 million parcels between Black Friday and Sinterklaas. In 2017, just under 10 million parcels were processed in the same period.
"It is thanks to the great efforts of all employees that we can process these record numbers,” says Leendert-Jan Plaisier, Director of Operations at PostNL Parcels. "Fortunately, earlier this year we hired over 300 parcel delivery staff and 100 drivers, and we opened three new sorting centres. This meant that we were able to deliver most of the extra parcels on the promised date. Consumers are kept as up to date as possible about the status of their parcel through the Track & Trace code, and we continue to work on improving our information provision."
In the Nordics, PostNord processed 2.2 million parcels in the few days following Black Friday, including a new single-day record of over 700,000 parcels in the night of Monday November 24 – Tuesday November 25, followed by just over 630,000 packages the following night.
"These are enjoyable but intense days in our production. We have taken many measures to face the Black Friday storm and most of them have gone well, but there is some risk of delays of individual packages of up to a day,” commented Mathias Krümmel, Head of Production at PostNord.
Black Friday online sales in Sweden hit a new record of SEK 6.7 billion this year, a 27% increase on 2017, according to a PostNord survey immediately after the event. Clothing and consumer electronics were the most popular goods.
In Norway, Posten Norge handled about 30% more parcels than last year during the week after the online shopping sales events, with about 200,000 packages a day at its main sorting centre in Oslo. This increase is not only due to general e-commerce growth in the country but also due to the fact that Posten has gained more online stores as customers in the past year.
In Spain, parcels carrier SEUR said it delivered 2.5 million parcels in the week after Black Friday, which was 10% more than during the same period last year. Peak day was November 27 with 500,000 parcels.
Most shipments were delivered to Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona, with Sevilla, Alicante and Málaga as other important destinations. About 100,000 deliveries were made to its Pickup stores. International shipments represented 17% of the total, with France, Germany and Italy as the main recipient countries.
The company coped with this volume surge by taking on 2,500 temporary workers, adding more delivery vehicles and profiting from this year’s capacity expansion at its logistics centres.
